


Blue

by expectopatronuts



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Post-Slipstream, Pre-Fall of Overwatch, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-03-19 05:19:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13697694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/expectopatronuts/pseuds/expectopatronuts
Summary: “You’re—you’re—”“Right here,” Angela completed, interrupting her stammer. Her hand was still on Lena’s shoulder, and its weight held an undeniable reality. “And so are you.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hey! so I have no idea where this came from, but it's here and i am deep in speedy recovery hell, so i guess i'm writing this now  
> i'll update the tags as I go, but you can be fairly sure there won't be anything disturbing  
> hope you enjoy it!

It was like breathing for the first time. The air burned her lungs as she gasped, gulping for air. She kept her eyes tightly closed. Sound came to her distorted.

A familiar voice was speaking.

“The chronal harness is finally working, but she’s…” A pause. “She’s not alright. I thought maybe you could help her.”

“Of course.” This other voice was higher in register, but seemed to come from even further away. “There were no complications with the surgery, but it’s only to be expected that—”

But what was to be expected, she never heard. A wave of nausea seized her, and as her insides contracted she had to devote all her energy to dry-retching and half-coughing, half-sobbing as she choked on her own saliva.

Suddenly there was pressure—pressure?—on her forehead. Something, someone, some—what didn’t really matter—was touching—and what did that mean, exactly?—her forehead. Touching her forehead, which was damp with cold sweat, and pushing her hair back, out of her eyes.

“Can you look at me?”

The voice seemed closer now. It was quiet, gentle. It must belong to the thing-person-whatever touching her forehead.

She swallowed. It was good, the question. _Could_ she look? She pondered it for a long second, but reached no conclussion. Maybe she could, in fact, but what if she couldn't? What if—

“That’s alright, you don’t have to just yet,” the voice said, softly. The touch on her forehead disappeared. “Do you know your name?”

A sob caught in her throat, like the question had stopped it in its tracks. Air went out of her lungs and back in again with a ragged breath. And then, before she knew she was going to do it, before she even knew she was going to do anything at all, she spoke.

“Lena.” The single word held a sort of reassuring power. “Lena." A pause. "Lena Oxton.”

As though her own name had given her strength, Lena opened her eyes. What she saw wasn’t the grey world of the timestream. There was colour, and light—light that didn’t burn her eyes—and in front of her was a woman.

A woman, and not one of the shapeless, formless things that had sometimes crossed her in the timestream. They had sometimes touched her too, but this time the touch on her forehead had belonged to this woman who was on her knees in front of her, to this woman with sharp blue eyes that seemed to pierce through her, to somehow look inside her.

Lena opened her mouth to speak, but the only thing that came out was an inarticulate sound. Suddenly, a terrible doubt assailed her. Sometimes, she had been able to look into the world from wherever she was in the timestream. Maybe this was just a higher definition, maybe she was still in, still there, still alone, still trapped, still—

She raised her hand and pressed it to the woman’s cheek. The wave of relief that washed over her when she met resistance was so powerful that it brought tears to her eyes. She lowered her head, her hand still on the woman’s cheek.

“You’re—I’m—I can _touch_ you,” Lena gasped. She looked at the woman, and the woman smiled. She pressed her own hand to Lena’s cheek. It felt cool. It was a wonderful sensation. “I’m back.” She laughed. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “I’m _here_.”

The last word dissolved into another sob—or was it laughter? She couldn’t tell anymore, and she didn’t care.

“Winston brought you back,” the woman said. “The chronal harness anchors your body to our timeline.”

Lena wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and sniffed. She looked down at her hands, and touched one with the other. She didn't think this sense of wonder at her own physicality would subside any time soon.

“Can you stand?”

Instead of answering, Lena did. She stood on solid ground, felt it beneath her feet, took an experimental step on it. She could _walk_. Maybe, if things kept going this well, soon she would be able to test if she could run.

The woman had got up as well and was now watching her with an expression which was hard to decipher but which was ultimately reassuring.

“That’s good,” she said, with a small smile. “I think you’re going to be fine. I’ll need to run a proper physical, but I think you’re going to be just fine.”

Lena looked at her and smiled back. It felt shaky, like she had forgotten how, but it was there.     

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah. I think I am.”

She _was_ going to be fine, she could feel it. She dried her cheeks again, this time with her sleeve.

“So you’re a—a friend of Winston’s?” she asked. “Are you Overwatch, too?”

The woman wore no uniform, but the blue lanyard that came with the ID card hung from the pocket of a lab coat, which was identical to Winston’s, with the Overwatch logo on the left, right over the breastbone. Lena supposed she must be some sort of scientist too.

“Yes and yes,” she said. “My name is Angela. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Lena tried to smile again. It felt more solid this time.

Angela gestured towards the door, and Lena took another step, wondering at how _solid_ the floor was. As they stepped out into the corridor, Angela laid a hand on Lena’s shoulder to guide her, and Lena had to look at her, look back over her shoulder and make sure it was still her and not a current from the timestream, brushing past her incorporeal self.

When her eyes met Angela’s sparkling blue ones, she felt like her knees might give, the relief was so great. Then, despite everything, a sudden sense of unreality seized her.

“You’re—you’re—”

“Right here,” Angela completed, interrupting her stammer. Her hand was still on Lena’s shoulder, and its weight held an undeniable reality. “And so are you.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there are literally two words in German, but I love ao3's "limited html" so i did the hover for translation thingy for you desktop people. if you're on mobile, check the end notes. and if it's not true that in some versions of Swiss German they say 'nei' instead of 'nein', definitely let me know

To Lena’s mild horror, the woman whose cheek she had been so liberally pawing in an attempt to come to grips with physical reality turned out to be Dr Angela “Mercy” Ziegler, M.D., Ph.D., Head of Medical Research.

Sitting on the exam table, Lena wondered how she hadn’t recognized her before. She had been one of the faces of the Overwatch recruitment campaign, after all, back in the early days. Lena could see why—she looked like the sort of person you wanted to trust, someone who you could rely on. And it didn’t hurt that she was very pretty.

However, her examination of the doctor was quickly brought to a halt when she shone a very bright light right into her eye and instructed her to look up. Lena complied, fighting the urge to blink, feeling her right eye begin to water.

“Reflexes are a bit slow,” Angela said, “but they’re symmetrical,” she added as she shone the light on the other eye. Lena did her best to stay still. “Doesn’t look like brain damage. Lack of use, probably. Things should be back to normal in a couple of hours, I’d say.”

The light was switched off, and Lena blinked with relief. After that, Angela ran a quick examination, like the one Lena had received before joining the Army—see if her leg bounced properly when hit on the knee, check her breathing, all that—and seemed satisfied with the results. Then, just when Lena had begun to get up, thinking she would be allowed to go free, Angela put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her back down gently.

“What, you thought that was all?” she said. “After spending the better part of three months floating around time with no physical form?” She laughed. “Oh, no, no. I’m going to make sure you’re _really_ alright. Besides, this is a very interesting case for me.”

“Is it?” Lena asked, sitting back down. Almost unconsciously, her hand clenched around a fistful of the paper sheets. Touching things was reassuring, and since the doctor’s face was out, the sheets would have to do. “But if there’s nothing wrong with me, won’t it be just like any other physical, like, ever?”

“Of course not,” Angela replied. She was standing by a metal table, getting ready an array of crystal tubes with different coloured caps. “Even if you’re fine, it means the body doesn’t react adversely to dematerialization for long periods of time. Physics aside, it raises medical questions left and right. And philosophical ones as well. Trust me, it won’t be like any other physical, like, ever,” she said with a tiny smirk. “Not at all.”

Lena smiled a little and thought it over for a second.

“I bet the Shambali would be interested in this.”

Angela turned her head fractionally and gave her an appraising look.

“I bet they would,” she answered. “You’re a follower of the Shambali?” she asked as she fished a rubber tube out of a drawer.

“Oh, um, a follower is perhaps a bit strong,” said Lena finally. “But I think it’s an interesting philosophy. I’ve read Mondatta’s two books, and I thought they were pretty solid.”

“There’s a third one now,” Angela said, turning back to her. “Stick out your arm, please.”

Lena complied. “Have you read it?”

“ _Nei_ ,” Angela said. “Clench your fist.” She prodded for the vein, then inserted the needle. Lena looked away. “There’s another monk that wrote a response to Mondatta’s teachings, and he has a much more sound theoretical background supporting his thesis. Since I read him, my enthusiasm for Mondatta has waned, I have to say.”

“Who is he?”

“His name’s Tekhartha Zenyatta,” Angela said. She dislodged the crystal vial from the tube and hooked another one, this one with a purple cap. Lena’s blood flowed into the rubber tube again. “I can lend you the book, if you like.”

“That’d be neat,” Lena said. Angela only smiled in response and unhooked the tube from her arm. “That's a good bit of blood you took there.”

Angela took off her gloves and tossed them to the trash.

“About a pint,” she said, with a glance at the little vials. “Don’t worry, you can spare it. Let me know if you feel faint at any point, though. We don’t want to push you too hard.”

“I’m right as rain, doc,” Lena said with a laugh.

And it was the truth. She was no longer holding onto the sheets for dear life, and she felt like adjusting to the physical world would be much easier than she had previously believed, if perhaps more overwhelming. It felt so good to be able to talk, to not be alone anymore, to be able to hear, to see—even if she had to have a very bright light shined into her eyes—and she no longer felt like she might throw up. In fact, her mouth watered at the mere thought of food.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Angela said, and she sounded like she meant it. “Take off your shirt, please.”

After a second of hesitation, Lena did. There was a little tug of pain in her chest as she raised her arms to shrug off her t-shirt—the undergarment of her pilot uniform, with the British flag on the sleeve. With the piece of clothing off, she had the chance to see what Angela had called the chronal harness. It was a circular thing—Lena had no better word for it—ringed with metal and embedded into her body. The middle of it shone with a sort of blue luminescence. 

As Lena conducted this exam of the thing that was keeping her from going back into the greyness of the timestream, Angela pressed a button and spoke into a comm.

“I have a bunch of blood samples ready for the lab,” she said. “If you could come pick them up and send them in, that’d be good.”

Then she turned around and looked at Lena. Even though her gaze was completely professional, Lena couldn’t help the blush that rose to her cheeks or the little shiver that went up her back as Angela traced the ridge where skin met metal with the tip of a finger.

“Minimal redness, and no other signs of rejection,” she said, almost under her breath. “It doesn’t look like—”

But before she could finish her sentence, the door opened without warning. Standing in the doorway was a very tall woman with hair a fiery red. She wore the same lab coat as Angela, but hers had a different logo stamped on the left. From where she was sitting, Lena couldn’t make out what it was.

“You said you had samples?” she asked, in an accent that to Lena sounded distinctly Irish.

Angela turned around, and raised her eyebrows.

“Moira,” she said, surprised. “I thought Eduardo was in 3B,” she said instead of answering.

“Evidently not,” Moira replied, letting her voice drawl a little. “So, where are the—” But then, her gaze fell on Lena and she broke off abruptly. “Is she the timestream case?”

Angela nodded. “Winston managed to make the harness work yesterday,” she said. “She reappeared this morning in physical form.”

Moira glanced at Lena again, then she looked back at Angela.

“Mind if I take a look?” she said, with a little wave of her hand in Lena’s direction. “I hear it was a rather complicated procedure.”

Angela seemed to hesitate. She looked at Lena, and she made her best effort to smile reassuringly. She didn’t love the idea of this woman with nails longer than Lena’s fingers coming closer than strictly necessary, but she also didn’t want to deny Angela what looked like a perfect opportunity to brag.

“Alright,” said Angela finally, with a last look at Lena.

Moira approached with long steps, and up close Lena saw her eyes were mismatched. It gave her a kind of eerie air that didn’t make her any more reassuring. She stood right in front of Lena and examined her chest for a full ten seconds in absolute silence.

In turn, Lena took the opportunity to examine the logo on her lab coat. It looked like some sort of animal skull with a red sword down the middle, all of it encased in a circle reminiscent of the Overwatch logo.

“Dermal fusion?” Moira said finally, tilting her head slightly towards Angela but not taking her eyes off Lena.

“Hybrid,” Angela answered.

She was leaning on the wall, watching them both. Moira nodded at the answer, like it made all the sense in the world.

“Unconventional,” she said.

“The situation was hardly conventional.”

“Point,” Moira said with a thin smile. Then, she glanced up at Lena. “May I?” she asked, gesturing with her left hand towards her body.

Well, at least she was polite.

“Sure,” Lena shrugged. “I’m usually not such an easy catch, but since I’m technically convalescing, I’ll make an exception.”

At that, Angela laughed, a clear laugh that floated up into the air. Moira threw her a scathing look, then turned her attention back to Lena.

“Don’t flatter yourself, girl,” she said, almost a hiss. “You may stand a chance with Ziegler over there,” she pointed to Angela with her head, “but I have standards.”

Lena merely grinned, and tried to ignore the new blush that was making her cheeks burn. _A chance with Ziegler over there my arse_ , she thought. Then, her attention was brought back as Moira traced the outline of the harness, much as Angela had done.

“Perfect integration,” she said, and there was an undercurrent of admiration in her voice. “Local DNA changes?”

“Of course,” Angela said. “Contained. And intentional.”

“How so?”

“The body knows what it’s doing.” It was Angela’s turn to shrug. “If the natural reaction is to mutate, I figured I might as well give that a boost, allow the body to accommodate, and then contain it.”

“So she has cells with metallic elements, but only a few layers deep?”

Lena frowned, then shook her head slightly. The thought was a little distressing, but no more than being trapped in the timestream.

“ _Genau_ ,” Angela nodded. “And only about three millimetres outwards. It’s a lot of cells, when you think about it, but there was nothing in my testing to indicate complications.”

“Mm,” Moira hummed, still looking at Lena’s chest. “It looks stable.”

“I should hope so,” Angela answered. “It was tricky work, I won’t lie. But,” she flashed a quick smile at Lena, “worth it in the end.”

“It’s nifty,” Moira said, and it sounded like the praise wasn't empty. “Clever. You should present it in Oasis. In the Genetics Symposium.”

At that Angela grimaced a little.

“Thanks, but I don’t know about that,” she said. “I’m no geneticist. Plus,” she added, “I’d have to write the paper, and I’m up to my neck with the Valkyrie project. Jack keeps pestering me to release a prototype.”

Moira scoffed.

“Morrison’s twelve shy of a dozen,” she said. “But you’re also very stingy when it comes to results.”

“Because I want them to be good results.”

Moira rolled her eyes and took a step back. Lena couldn’t deny feeling a little relieved.

“I’ll take these, then,” Moira said, picking up the tray with the test tubes. “I assume they're labelled?” Angela nodded. Moira walked to the door and turned right before going out. “I’ll take a look at that paper if you do write it,” she offered over her shoulder. “If you want.”

Then she was out, and Angela took up her previous place in front of Lena.

“Sorry about that,” she said. “I know Moira can be a bit… off-putting, but she’s really not all that bad.”

“That’s okay,” Lena answered. “She’s Irish. It’s just how they are.”

That got another little laugh out of Angela, and Lena felt her chest swell with happiness. She had forgotten what it was to make people laugh.

“Well,” Angela said, bringing her fingertips together. “Everything seems to be in order so far. We’ll wait for the test results, and we’ll see what, if anything, needs to be done.” Lena nodded, but Angela pointed a finger at her. “This doesn’t mean you’re clear,” she said. “No strenuous physical activity, and definitely no flying. Nothing else that might trigger an adrenaline surge, either. What you need is rest, and food,” Lena felt her stomach rumble at the mention, “and you need to monitor all your bodily functions closely. If you experience anything out of the norm, I need to know,” Angela said. “And by anything I mean _anything_ , not just problems with the harness. Understood?”

Lena nodded. Eat, sleep, chill a little? Yes, she could do that. She _had_ been looking forward to running a few laps, seeing how much her times had gone down, but she supposed that could wait. As for flying, the mere thought gave her chills right now.

“I can manage that,” she said with a smile.

Angela nodded. She brushed aside a strand of hair that had come loose from her ponytail and spread her hands, as though saying, _well, that’s that_.

“Then you can get dressed and you’re free to go,” she said. “I bet Winston will be looking forward to your visit. And I will see you tomorrow back here, nine o’clock.”

Pulling her t-shirt over her head was easier work that taking it off had been, and Lena was dressed in about three seconds.

“Alright, doc,” she said. “I’ll be going, then.”

She snapped a sort of half-salute in Angela’s direction, to which Angela replied with a little wave, and went out. As the door clicked shut behind her, Lena paused in the corridor for a second. She ran a hand through her hair—unacceptably non-spiky—and breathed in slowly.

She had a lot to process—returning to reality after a trip through time was a lot more overwhelming than films made it look—and it didn’t help that one of those things was a certain very pretty blond doctor who also happened to be a decorated combat medic and who, based on Moira’s reaction, had probably just revolutionized _some_ field in _some_ way.

Lena shook her head. The truth was, nothing could have prepared her for Angela Ziegler, but she had a feeling it was better not to think about the doctor too much, at least for now. Besides, Winston would be waiting, and there was food to be had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nei - no  
> genau - exactly
> 
> hope you enjoyed that!


	3. Chapter 3

Winston had kept all her things, neatly packed into her RAF duffle bag, and the first thing Lena did was hunt through the clothes and other personal items until, at the bottom, she found the really important stuff—her sketch book and a can of hair spray.

Then she dug a little more for the blue hoodie that matched her high tops perfectly, grabbed a pair of leggings at random, and ducked into the bathroom of the research wing.

Five minutes later she re-emerged, with her hair appropriately spiky and the notebook safely tucked in her pocket. Feeling like a new person, she went back to Winston’s lab.

“Dunno about you, love, but I’m about to drop dead if I don’t get some grub in me,” she said.

Winston grinned at her and pushed his glasses up his nose.

“Wouldn’t want that, after all the effort it took to bring you back,” he said. He put down what looked like a blueprint and stood up. “Let’s go eat.”

The mess hall was buzzing with activity. Most of the people sitting at the table wore the Overwatch blue, but Lena saw a few others in black uniforms, as well as people in civvies, and the white of lab coats scattered here and there.

As they made a beeline for the counter—more precisely, for the end of the queue, about five meters from the counter—Lena got a few _welcome backs_ and a few claps on the back from people she might have seen in passing but didn’t really remember, which she answered with a grin she hoped didn’t look forced.

“Does everybody know what happened?” she asked Winston.

“Pretty much,” he answered. “The Slipstream was a highly ambitious project. A lot of money was pumped into the research, and a lot of people were interested in the potential applications. It would have been impossible to keep the accident a secret.” He paused. “Still, most do not know the details. Just that there was a malfunction and that you got the worst of it. Which is technically true,” he added with a lopsided smile.

Finally they reached the counter, Winston scanned his Overwatch card twice, and they were served something that looked surprisingly edible by military standards. They found a free table near the back of the room, and Winston set to catching up Lena on the going-ons in Overwatch and in the world during the three months she had been gone. However, his strength wasn’t precisely storytelling, and Lena resolved to check out the news to get a proper picture.

After lunch, Winston made a stop in an office labelled _Logistics Department 1_ and Lena had to sit still while an irritable woman whose name she didn’t catch (or care about) got her a guest card (her old one had expired two months ago), gave her an intranetwork access code and password, and assigned her sleeping quarters 2D12, which stood for Pavillion 2D, Room 12.

As they were on their way, Lena with her bag slung across her shoulder, something in Winston’s pocket startled her with an urgent beeping. He took out a mini holo-pad, checked the incoming message, and grimaced.

“Duty calls, I’m afraid,” he said. “They need me in the lab.”

Lena smiled. “Don’t keep them waiting, I’m sure they need the expert to tell them what to do.”

Winston grinned, and Lena could have sworn he blushed a little at the flattery.

“Will you make it okay?” he asked. But before Lena had time to reassure him, he went on. “If you get lost, just ask Athena for help, and she’ll get you there.” He waved at her, already going down the corridor. Whatever the message had been, it must really have been urgent. “See you at dinner!”

Whoever Athena was, Lena found her way to Pavilion 2D just fine without her help, and once there it was just a matter of following the room numbers as they increased until she reached 12. Her card opened the door with a satisfying beep, and she stepped into the room.

The curtains were wide open, and daylight flooded the narrow space. The bed was a bunk, the mattress on the top one bare and the neatly made with a checkered blanket that didn’t look like Overwatch equipment at all. On it lay a blue tank top and a stuffed animal that upon closer inspection turned out to be a polar bear.

There was a white jacket hung on the back of the chair, and on the desk were other signs of occupation: an open laptop with a screensaver that showed a group picture of people in skiing gear with a backdrop of snowed mountains, a mug with the string of a tea bag hanging from it, a microfiber cloth for cleaning glasses, and a sort of droid thing—Lena had no idea what it was—  plugged into a charging port.

However, her roommate was obviously out, so Lena dropped her duffel bag on the floor, climbed to the top bunk—the fact that her roommate had voluntarily chosen the bottom gave her serious doubts as to her personality—and set to making the bed, contorting to avoid hitting her head on the ceiling.

Once that was done, she grabbed her laptop, propped up the pillow to sit against it, started the computer, and clicked on the network symbol. A blue triangular symbol appeared on the screen, pulsed there for a second, then faded.

 _Welcome to the Overwatch Intranet, Headquarters: Zürich,_ read the message that appeared. Under it, there were two little boxes labelled _username_ and _password_. Lena checked the little paper where the woman had written those down, and inputted them.

_Access successful. You are now logged in as a guest. I am Athena, Overwatch’s AI program. Would you like to activate voice input and output? This can be changed at any point in AI Configuration Options._

Lena clicked the little box that said _yes_ , and heard the faint hum of the laptop’s speakers coming into action right before a female voice with a slight robotic twang spoke.

“Welcome to the Overwatch Intranet, Headquarters: Zürich,” it said. You are now logged in—”

“—as a guest,” Lena completed. “Yeah, yeah, I know how to read.”

“My apologies, Miss Oxton,” Athena said. “I am still in development, and my interaction protocols haven’t yet been revised.”

Lena frowned a little.

“It’s no problem,” she said. “How come you know my name?”

“I assisted Winston in developing your chronal harness,” she said. “I am familiar with your medical and personal history.”

As she talked, the little blue triangle pulsed in the upper right corner of the screen.

“Oh-kay,” Lena said. “A little disturbing, but at least I won’t have to introduce myself.”

“There is no cause for worry, Miss Oxton,” Athena said. “My security protocols are perfectly up to date, and all agent information is accessible only to high command.”

“I see,” Lena said. She paused, thinking. “So, will you be able to see all I do on my computer?”

"Negative,” Athena answered. “As I have not been natively installed in your machine, I only have a peripheral view of your activity. However, that also means you won’t be able to access my full capabilities. I will, however, archive your online activity as part as Overwatch security protocols.”

“So that means that if, say, I video called my friends, you would be able to see the call?”

“Negative,” Athena said again. “All activity passes through what is called a blindfold program before being archived. I store data packages, but I am unable to see what is inside them.” The blue logo pulsed in silence for two seconds. “Only personnel with high security clearance would be able to unpack that information, and even then, a recodification program would be needed to view it. Your privacy is perfectly safe, Miss Oxton.”

“Right,” Lena said. Worst case scenario, some Overwatch hot shot would one day discover her preferences when it came to porn. She could live with that. “So I just call on you if I need anything?”

“That is correct,” said Athena. “Saying my name will activate me. Until then, I will remain in hibernation in your machine.”

“Gotcha,” Lena said. “Good night, then, Athena.”

The blue logo pulsed twice more, then stayed still in the corner. Lena opened her browser and clicked on the bookmark for the Atlas News website. Twenty minutes later, she closed the browser, frowning with the newly acquired knowledge of the English Prime Minister’s resolution to ban Overwatch activity from the country and his refusal to acknowledge the threat that Null Sector posed to London.

She stared at her screen for a minute, thinking, then opened Connect and searched through her contact lists until she found the name she was looking for, and pressed _call_ with a flutter of anticipation.

It took about fifteen seconds for the connection to be established, then the window expanded to take up the whole screen, and a freckled face framed by red hair appeared.

“Lena?” came the incredulous voice, slightly distorted through the speakers. “Is that really you?”

For a second, Lena was unable to speak. Then, she swallowed and grinned.

“Lena Oxton in the flesh,” she said. “How’ve you been, Em?”

Emily Heffernan, Lieutenant in command of the Kestrel Air Division, stared with her mouth half-open for a second. Lena was unable to repress a giggle at her face of shock.

“What’re you laughing at, Oxton?” Emily scowled, but there was no force behind her words. In fact, Lena could have sworn she was a second away from smiling herself.

“Mostly, your face,” Lena said with a laugh.

“Well, what’d you expect, a hello and how do you do?” Emily said. She looked intently at Lena, like she was trying to figure out a hard problem. “They told us you were dead, Lena, and suddenly you’re on my screen.” Finally, the smile came through, lighting up Emily’s face. “Man, of course I’m shocked.”

“Was never dead,” Lena shook her head. “Just out of commission for a little while,” she added. “But now I’m back in the game!”

“Are you coming back to London?” Emily asked. “We could really use you, you know. We’re deploying to the Spanish front next week.”

“Dunno yet,” Lena said. “I mean, I’ll be going back at some point, I guess,” she added. “But for now, the doc wants to keep me in observation for a bit.”

Before Emily could reply, a voice came from somewhere behind her.

“Hey, who are you talking to?”

Immediately after, a face topped off by black hair appeared sideways, peaking at the screen. His screech brought two other people, and suddenly Lena found herself talking to the whole division, Beth and Ian shooting questions like rapid-fire, Edmund listening for the most part, Jean inserting her usual sarcastic comments that made them all burst into laughter.

Emily was in the middle of telling her—with abundant interjections from the rest—about their latest mission somewhere up in Yorkshire, when the door to the room opened without previous warning.

A woman stepped in, and gave a startled yelp when she saw Lena. Lena herself almost jumped off the bed at the sudden interruption.

“Oh boy,” she said. She could feel her heart hammering in her chest, beginning to calm down as her body processed that there was no threat. “Guys, I’ve got to go,” she said to her computer screen. “But talk to you soon, alright?”

“You better,” said Beth.

“Clear skies, Lena,” said Emily with a last smile.

“Right back at you, love,” Lena said, raising two fingers to her forehead in a friendly salute. “Take care!”

And with that, she hit the _end call_ button, closed the laptop, climbed down, blew a lock of hair out of her face and extended her hand for the other woman to grasp.

“Hiya!” she said. “I’m so sorry for startling you, I was assigned to this room just now. My name’s Lena,” she introduced herself.

The other woman adjusted her glasses on her nose, and smiled a little, an almost shy gesture. However, she shook Lena’s hand with a firm grip.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said in a lightly accented voice. “I just wasn’t expecting you,” she said. “I’m Mei-Ling Zhou, but you can call me Mei for short. Everybody does,” she added with a little laugh.

“It’s so nice to meet you,” Lena said. “So are you stationed here? Or are you visiting somebody? Are you Overwatch?”

Mei waited out her questions, and spoke when Lena fell silent.

“I’m not Overwatch, actually,” Mei said. “But I’ve been working on Overwatch facilities for the past two years. My team and I just came down from Ecopoint: Mont Blanc,” she explained. “There was also an MPI-Met team up there who had some great stuff going on, so we decided to team up with them, and we’re stationed here until we deploy to Ecopoint: Antartica next week!”

Her excitement was contagious, and Lena found herself smiling broadly.

“That’s amazing,” she said. Then, she grinned widely. “You could say it’s… a-Mei-zing.”

Mei’s cheeks dimpled as she laughed, and Lena decided that, even if she _had_ voluntarily chosen the bottom bunk, she would be a good roommate.

The next hour was spent unpacking her bag while Mei told her Ecopoint: Mont Blanc stories and introduced her to Snowball—the droid thingy she had seen in the charging port—which, she had to admit, was pretty awesome.

Lena, in turn, told her stories about the RAF and the Kestrels Division and, to Mei’s credit, she didn’t ask once about the Slipstream accident, though judging from her face she had heard plenty about it.

They went down to dinner together, met Winston on the way and sat with the rest of Mei’s team. Lena could hardly believe how well her first day back in physical reality was going. She hadn’t had any more of those episodes where she felt like reality was slipping from under her, she had managed to heed all of Angela’s recommendations so far, and she had even managed not to think about Angela herself. All in all, a pretty good balance.

To top it off, Lena decided to go for a short walk after dinner, get some air, see the sunset from what had become known to Overwatch personnel as Headquarters Hill.

And that’s when the problems started.

She walked up to the door with her hoodie in one hand, opened it, and that’s as far as she got. She stood looking out at the clear blue sky that stretched off into the distance, at the path that led down the hill, at the city sprawled below, and suddenly she was overcome with a sense of unreality so strong that she had to grip the doorknob until her knuckles went white.

The idea of going outside, which moments ago had seemed such a good one, was quickly losing all of its appeal and beginning to seem an insurmountable task. She knew it was irrational, but going into that vast space was too similar to going back to a world without reference, where getting her bearings was no longer as easy as stretching out her hand and touching the doorknob. The prospect of _going outside_ had now acquired for her a vaguely menacing meaning, and she found that she had no wish at all of stepping beyond the glass doorway of the building.

But, on the other side, she knew she had to. If she allowed this idea to keep growing—it had already become **_going outside_** in her mind—she would keep putting it off and off and off, and the truth was that if she wanted to take up track and field again she would have to step outside sometime. Plus, being afraid of going outside sounded like a level of mental fuck-upery that she had no wish to live with.

And yet, she stood in place, all her muscles tense but without moving. She wasn’t sure how long she had been standing there, unseeing, trying to convince herself of taking that step forward, when a voice startled here.

“Are you alright there?”

Lena opened her eyes and came face to face with Moira. Lab coat-less, she looked slightly less threatening, but the effect was compensated by the huge Doberman by her side.

“I’m fine,” she said, trying for a smile. It felt rather shaky, but it was something. “Just checking out the view.”

“Really.” Moira raised her eyebrows in a clear gesture of disbelief. “You’re white as a sheet.”

“Yeah, really,” Lena assured her, and this time she felt she managed to give her smile a little defiant twist. “I’m perfectly fine, I’m just—”

Suddenly, she felt something touch her leg and she jumped back, alarmed. Looking down, she saw another Doberman, only this one was miniature size, obviously a puppy, and a very young one at that.

“Finley, stay,” Moira said. “Finley. Stay.” When it became clear that Finley was much more interested in trying to gnaw his way through Lena’s shoes than in staying, Moira bent down and picked him up. “When will you learn?” she asked, obviously talking to the dog. “Huh?”

Lena watched her scratch behind Finley’s ears as Finley try to lick her full on the face and didn't quite succeed.

“Are those your dogs?” Lena asked, for lack of anything better.

“These two idiots?” Moira asked. The insult came more affectionate than anything else. “Why, I suppose they are. Einin here flunked out of the Overwatch Training Program because she got pregnant when she wasn’t supposed to and because apparently the vets here are dense enough to not notice a pregnant dog.” She raised her eyebrows as if saying _and we’re still surprised at the state of the world_. “This other hairball,” she scratched Finley behind the ears again, “is the only survivor of that pregnancy. They were going to be taken to a shelter,” her nose wrinkled at the word, “so I decided _I_ ’d take care of them, if nobody else would.”

Lena stared at her for a second.

“That’s… surprisingly nice of you,” she said.

Moira snorted. “Well, I’m glad to see you had me pegged as the bad doctor already,” she said. “Though when working with Ziegler it is rather hard to escape the good doc/bad doc dynamic.”

Lena felt herself blushing.

“Oh, that’s not—” she began.

“Save it, Oxton,” Moira interrupted. “You’re a terrible liar, and you aren’t entirely wrong.”

Choosing to ignore that last comment, Lena bent down and tentatively extended a hand towards Einin. When she showed no sign of biting it off, she petted her head gingerly.

“So did they just happen to come with Gaelic names, or…?”

“Of course not,” Moira said, rolling her eyes. “Einin used to be 231, and Finley never even got a number. I wasn’t about to let her go around answering to 231, so I’m retraining her to answer to Einin.”

“Ah. Well, good luck with that,” Lena said. “I’ll—uh—be going now.”

But before she could turn and make her escape, Moira spoke again.

“Weren’t you going outside?”

Lena glanced at the neatly mowed expanse of grass in front of the building and felt a sort of shudder go through her.

“Nah,” she answered, going for nonchalant and only hitting vaguely uneasy. “I’m going to turn in soon, I’m pretty much knackered.”

It wasn’t a lie, but the truth was that GOING OUTSIDE now seemed like a terrible idea. But perhaps even worse was the fact that she would have to tell Angela about this newfound fear of hers, and she was fairly sure it wouldn’t help her project her tough girl image at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this was an unacceptably Angela-less chapter, but that will be remedied very soon. As in, next chapter.


	4. Chapter 4

“ _Ach_ , I forgot to bring you the book,” Angela said as soon as Lena opened the door to exam room 2.

She was already in when Lena got to the med bay at exactly 9 a.m., seated at her desk, with a mug of coffee in front of her. _Self-medicating_ , it said on it, printed in blue letters.

“That’s alright,” Lena said. “It’s not like I’m going to be quizzed on it tomorrow.”

Angela merely smiled and waved for her to sit. Lena did, on the edge of the chair, her leg bouncing on the ball of her foot as Angela scanned what she supposed was her patient file. She wore her hair down that day, and under the lab coat she wore a faded blue t-shirt. Lena could just make out the letters of the Kraftwerk logo on it.

“The tests were surprisingly normal,” Angela said, still looking at her computer screen.

After a second, she pulled up a holo-projection and turned it around so Lena could see.  “Low blood sugar, but I expect that was fixed by a good meal yesterday,” she said with a flicker of a smile and a glance at Lena, who smiled back sheepishly. “RBC is a little low too,” she pointed to the corresponding line, and Lena leaned forward a little to be able to read it (not that it was much good), “but nothing drastic. The CMP,” now she pointed to the line that said Comprehensive Metabolic Panel, “was good, overall. Some values fall out of range, but not by much, so I don’t think there’s cause for worry.”

“Well, that’s good, right?” Lena said.

“Yes,” Angela said. “That’s good. Still, I’m going to repeat the tests in two weeks to make sure all values have normalized.”

Lena nodded. Two weeks wasn’t too bad. It would give her some time to figure out what she wanted to do when she got back to London.

“So, then,” Angela said. “Have you experienced any other problems?”

Her eyes set on Lena, who couldn't help feeling a little like a deer caught in the headlights.

“I—uh—kind of, yeah,” she managed finally.

She had to tell Angela about her little incident the day before, that much was clear. The only problem was, she still hadn’t figured out how to make it sound… well, not stupid. But, to her surprise, Angela spoke before she could.

“Yes, I gathered as much.”

Lena opened her mouth, then closed it again.

“She snitched on me, didn’t she?” she said finally, frowning. “Of course she did, she’s Irish,” she answered her own question.

“To be fair, she didn’t give me much detail,” Angela said, with a tiny smile. “In her own words, you were ‘half-catatonic in the main entrance’.”

“Well, somebody likes exaggeration,” Lena huffed. “I wasn’t catatonic, I’ll have you know.”

Angela put her hands around the mug and leaned forward a little.

“I should hope not,” she said. She paused for a second. “So what did happen?”

 _Good question_ , Lena thought. _Very good question_. She was silent for a moment, trying to find a way to explain it, but she came up empty-handed from her search. She bit her lip and looked up. She only managed a glance at Angela’s face before she spoke.

“I can’t go outside.”

There. The truth, pure and simple, and let Angela make of it what she would. Risking another look, she saw her blink twice as she raised her eyebrows.

“You can’t go outside,” she repeated in a faintly puzzled tone. “Can you elaborate on that? Did you have a panic attack? Did you have any physical symptoms?”

“No. No, no,” Lena said. “It’s just—” She shook her head and spread her hands in a helpless gesture. She felt infinitely stupid. “I just had this thought that I might—I don’t know—I just didn’t want to go out in the open. I guess I thought it would be like the timestream in a way, you know? With no references, and—” She flicked a tuft of hair away from her face. “Like, I _wanted_ to go outside at first, but then I just… _couldn’t_ ,” she finished lamely.

The silence seemed to stretch on as Angela drummed her fingers on the desk, seemingly deep in though.

“That’s interesting,” she said finally.

Lena waited expectantly, but Angela seemed content with looking at her with her head slightly tilted and her lips pressed together in concentration.

“So…” Lena risked when it became clear that nothing else was forthcoming. “How much time do I have left, then?” she joked weakly.

The barest of smiles curved the corner of Angela’s mouth.

“A long happy life, I should think,” she said. “As to your problem,” she went on, “I think the best we can do is take direct action.”

“Direct action?” Lena repeated, a little uneasy. Who knew what that could mean, coming out of a doctor’s mouth.

“Yes,” Angela said. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, “Do you like crêpes?”

Puzzled, Lena nodded slowly. “I guess so?” she said. “I’ve only had them once, though.”

“There’s a very good crêpe place about fifteen minutes from here,” Angela said. “If you can get there, I’m buying.”

Lena’s eyes snapped up. Angela held her gaze steadily, her eyes twinkling with amusement.

“You’re bribing me with food?”

“I’m bribing you with the best crêpes in Zürich,” Angela replied. “Verified by Mme Lacroix herself, and she’s not only very picky, she's also French.”

“But—”

“I know it’s unconventional,” Angela said, before Lena could get a word in. “But I think your best option is to tackle this fear before it takes hold.”

“But _fifteen minutes_ ,” Lena said. She looked down at her hands. “I couldn’t even get out the door.”

“I’ll help you out the door,” Angela said, in a tone so convincing Lena could almost feel the spring breeze on her face already. Then, she smiled a little embarrassed smile. “Well, it doesn’t have to be me. Sparks, or anybody from the psych department would probably do a better job in this case. Anybody from the medical team could go with you, really, you can take your pick. Or Winston, he could also be an option, provided he feels like going out.”          

“No, that’s—” Lena broke off. She felt herself blushing yet again. “I mean, I’m sure you’re really busy, but if you want—”

As though to prove her words right, a little beeping sound came from somewhere in Angela’s general direction.

“Sorry. I’m sorry, just a second,” she said as she fished around in her pocket.

Her hand came out holding a mini holo-pad just like Winston’s. She pressed a button and a voice came from it.

“Hi. Um, Dr Ziegler?” a nervous voice came from it. “Hi. It’s Eduardo. I—uh—need a bit of help. One of Mr Shimada’s impulse transmitters is—well, I don’t really know what’s going on, and—”

“I’ll be right there,” Angela interrupted him. She looked a little annoyed, but it didn’t show in her voice. “Just keep him calm and don’t touch anything. I’m on my way.”

Angela broke the connection and smiled apologetically.

“I’m really sorry,” she said, getting up. “but I have to go.”

Lena followed suit and pushed the chair back into its place. Angela held the door open for her, and followed her into the corridor.

“If you pass Jesse on the way, can you tell him to wait five minutes?” Angela asked.

“Sure thing,” Lena said. Only after she said it, she realized she had no idea who Jesse was.

“Great. And I’ll see you at six by the main entrance?”

“It’s a date,” Lena managed weakly.

Angela simply raised a hand in a goodbye gesture and started down the corridor at a quick pace.

Lena stared after her, watching her lab coat billow behind her, until she disappeared around the corner. Then, she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. _It’s a date_ , she mocked herself in her head. 

“Smooth,” said a voice behind her, as though on cue.

“Oh, stuff it,” Lena said, perhaps with a little more heat than was called for.

She turned around and came face to face with a man wearing a faded plaid shirt and holding what looked distinctly like a cowboy hat. His hair was pulled back in a tiny ponytail and he had a shadow of a beard, like he had either forgotten to shave that morning or was trying to grow it out.

“I meant it,” he said. “The doc’s not one to go out with anybody just like that. Trust me, I know.”

“And you are?” Lena said, for lack of anything better.

It came out rather hostile, but he didn’t seem to mind.

“The name’s McCree,” he said, with a distinctly southern twang. “Jesse McCree.”

“Ah,” Lena said. “Well, the doc said to tell you she’ll be back in five.”

“Yeah, I heard,” Jesse said. “Don’t mind waiting, that means I can arrive directly to target practice.”

“You’re Overwatch too?” Lena asked. Out of uniform, it was hard to tell who was and who wasn’t.

“Nope,” he said, to her surprise. “Blackwatch,” he said. Lena looked at him blankly until he elaborated. “Overwatch’s black ops division.”

“There’s a black ops division?” Lena asked. “Like, out of the UN’s control?”

Jesse rubbed the back of his neck with the prosthetic that replaced his left arm.

“I don’t know if I should tell you that,” he said slowly. “I mean, you’re that Slipstream pilot, right? You’re not even Overwatch.”

“No,” Lena answered, drawing herself up to her full height. It wasn’t much, but nobody was going to make her feel lesser for not being Overwatch. “I’m RAF. And I’m going to go now.”

McCree shrugged, as though saying _suit yourself_.

 “Good luck on your date,” he called after her. "You're going to need it."

On impulse, Lena raised her middle finger at him without even turning around. She heard him laugh, and liked him a little better for it, but she couldn’t help thinking that maybe he was right. However, she resolved not to think about it until she absolutely had to. It wasn’t even a real date, anyway. She had said that just because (hadn't she?) but for Angela this was just, well, her job. Surely there were a thousand other things she would rather be doing instead of taking her out for crêpes so she could get rid of her damn baby fear.

To distract herself, she set out to exploring the Headquarter complex. Apart from the sleeping pavilion, there was a Training Facility, complete with a shooting range and Olympic pool, an Administrative Facility that was mostly bureaus and offices for high command, a Com Centre which Lena’s card didn’t let her access, a Recreational Area which included the mess hall, an indoor multi-sport court which led to an outdoor basketball court, and a common room with a couch, an old TV and an electronic notice board displaying several announcements ( _Saturday movie night: Six-Gun Killer_ ; _FF make your bets!_ ; _May 30: Starcraft League semifinals_ ; _Skiing trip sign-ups open now!; @all residents: barbecues forbidden on the front lawn_ ).

Eventually, Lena came back around to the Research Facility adjacent to the Med Bay, where she almost had a stroke when Finley gave an enthusiastic bark and began a sprint in her direction, his paws slipping on the polished floor.

Lena bent down to pet him before he could latch onto her shoes again, and she was in the process of scratching his tummy when Moira stuck her head out of a nearby doorway.

“Oh. It’s just you,” she said dispassionately. Einin’s head was visible behind her, her ears twitching. “I trust you spoke with Ziegler about your little incident yesterday?”

“ _You_ spoke with her about my little incident yesterday,” Lena said accusingly, straightening up.

Finley ran back to Einin with the same uncoordinated run and disappeared beyond the doorway.

Moira shrugged. “I wasn’t sure you would,” she said. “You look like the kind of person who, if you pissed blood once, would piss in the dark for the next ten days and hope it went away instead of telling your doctor.”

“That’s a really specific analogy, but whatever,” Lena said, tossing a tuft of hair out of her face with an imperious shake of her head. “Fact is, you snitched.”

“God, you sound like you were pulled straight out of EastEnders.”

“How old are you, even?” Lena said, with all the contempt she could muster. “My grandma watches that show.”

“Your grandma has terrible taste, then,” Moira deadpanned back.

“I’m not even from the East End, so joke’s on you.”

“It wasn’t a joke. Anyway,” Moira went on before Lena could interject, “I have to go back to work. Just because you have a free morning doesn’t mean we all do.”

“I don’t have a free morning,” Lena retorted. “I’m _convalescing_.”

Moira fixed her with her dispassionate stare.

“Puir wee lass,” she said, utterly without sympathy. “I _do_ wish you a speedy recovery.”

“I bet you do,” Lena said, under her breath as Moira went back into the lab without so much as goodbye. “I just bet you do.”

As she stalked off, she debated paying a visit to Winston, but in the end decided against it. As much as Moira was annoying as hell, she was kind of right. People were working, and Winston _had_ seemed busy the day before.    

In the end, she settled for the empty common room, took her sketchbook out of her pocket, and opened it. On the corner of her last drawing was a date: 23/2/2070. The following day she had flown out with the Slipstream for the first and last time.

The pencil felt strange in her hand, and she had to adjust her grip twice. Then she wrote 18/05/2070 on the corner and began doing little warm-up doodles—straight lines, jagged lines, circles, shaded circles—until she grew bored and started fiddling with lettering ideas that she would probably never transfer to an actual graffiti.

A lunch she sat with Winston, listening to him talk about his research and bouncing her leg restlessly as nervousness uncoiled in her stomach. Now GOING OUTSIDE had become GOING OUTSIDE WITH ANGELA ZIEGLER, and even though it was clearly _not_ a date and whatever Lena felt towards the doctor was surely no more than a little crush—they had known each other for a grand total of two days, for Christ’s sake—the prospect of embarrassing herself in front of Angela still wasn’t a thrilling one.

Plus, now she had to find a t-shirt that hid the blue glow of the chronal harness, and that was going to be an adventure of its own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stay tuned for the useless gays going on a crêpe date. i really thought we'd get there on this chapter but alas  
> also @britain pls explain eastenders to me, i watched like five minutes of it and i am a little traumatized, i won't lie


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey it's an update! or... u know... something like that

“Are you deaf as well as daft? Go around!” a familiar voice was saying. “Go out the bloody back. Is it really that difficult?”

Lena opened her eyes and found herself staring up at the ceiling.

“Wha—”

But before she could get up, a hand on her shoulder pushed her back down, gently.

“Take it easy,” this voice she recognized as Angela’s, and soon her face came into view, blond hair hanging down. “You blacked out. I’m guessing you tried to push through a panic attack?”

“I don’t—” Lena shook her head.

She remembered staring at the world outside through the glass, thinking that she had to do this. She had taken a step forward, then another, pushing down the panic beginning in her stomach, trying to ignore the fact that breathing was becoming increasingly difficult. And then she had found herself staring at the ceiling, with Angela kneeling beside her.

She opened her mouth, but someone beat her to speaking.

“Get a bloody move on, Ziegler, I’m getting tired of playing traffic officer.”

Lena followed Angela’s gaze and saw Moira, standing in the entrance to the foyer, redirecting people to other doors.

“We’ll be just a second, Moira,” Angela called. “Thank you,” she added, putting on her sweetest smile. It faded a little when she turned her attention back to Lena. “We absolutely do not have to try again today. I’d advise that you do, but it’s not necessary.”

“No, it is,” Lena said. She moved to stand, and if it weren’t for Angela’s hand steadying her by the arm, she might have fallen down again. “I’ve got to do this.”

“Alright,” Angela conceded. “Let’s take it slow, then. One step at a time.”

“Right. I can do this.”

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and started forward again. Right foot, left foot, right foot. She was about five steps from the door when breathing started to become difficult. But this time, panic was brought up short when Angela took hold of her hand.

“It’s alright,” she said. “I’ve got you.”

Lena swallowed with difficulty, then took another step.

“When I was little,” said Angela then, softly, “I was very good friends with a boy who lived down our street.” The hand hadn’t left Lena’s. In fact, the grip became a little firmer. “His name was Jürgen,” Angela said then, and Lena wondered what the relevance of this story was even as she took another step.

“Jürgen had somehow become convinced of this theory,” Angela went on, “that a washing machine wouldn’t run if there was a child inside it. You know, as a safety measure.”

Lena glanced at her, brow furrowed, and let herself be gently pulled forward, taking another small step.

“ _I_ didn’t believe it. There was no way a washing machine could detect if it was a child or a bunch of clothes inside it, right?”

“Right,” Lena answered, weakly. She had no idea where Angela was going with this story, and was increasingly aware that the distance to the glass door was shortening, and fast. But Angela kept speaking.

“So Jürgen and I set out to test this theory of his,” she said, stopping a little ahead of Lena, waiting for her to take the next step. “We decided that the best way to go about it—the only way, really—was that one of us sacrifice themselves and get into the washing machine while the other one,” a Lena hesitated on the verge of a step, then finally took it, “turned it on.”

She swallowed thickly as Angela pushed the door open.

“I have never been lucky in games,” Angela went on, her palm on the glass of the door. “So, of course, I drew the short stick. Now, understand me here,” she said with a little smile, “I had no interest in getting into a washing machine, but I couldn’t let Jürgen think I was a coward. And besides,” she added, “this was for science.”

Lena could smell the fresh air, could almost feel the spring sun shining on her skin. All she had to do was take one more step.

“So I got in,” Angela said, and Lena latched on to her voice, hardly hearing the words anymore, “and as the door closed I was terrified. I fully believed that I was about to drown in a washing machine. And my fears were justified, because it did turn on.”

Somehow, the tone in which she said it managed to draw a week laugh out of Lena.

“Jürgen turned it off immediately and let me out, and the first thing I said was ‘I told you so’.” Lena could see Angela’s shadow on the pavement. “My parents only found out when the company answered a letter we sent them informing them of the safety issue.” Angela shifted her grip on Lena’s hand but didn’t let go. “I didn’t get a whooping only because my dad was crying from laughing so hard.”

Lena put her right foot forward and then, without thinking about it, her left. And just like that, she was outside, and she had to squeeze Angela’s hand for a moment because it was so much all at once, it was too much, too—

“Hey. _Es geht_ ,” Angela said, and Lena was surprised to hear how gentle German could sound. “The worst is over now. I’ve got you, I promise. It’s not so bad, is it?”

And it wasn’t, really, once her heart slowed down to a normal rhythm. In fact, it was pretty good.

“It’s okay, yeah,” Lena managed. “Not so bad.”

Angela grinned at her and let the door close behind them.

“Shall we, then?” she said, gesturing to the path that led down the hill. “I promise you, the crêpes are really good.”

Lena felt her legs shaking in the way they will after an adrenaline rush has passed and took a deep breath. Angela was still holding her hand and seemed completely unbothered by it, which Lena was extremely thankful for. She didn’t think she could have handled it on her own.

“Was it true?” she asked after a second of silence. “The washing story machine?” she clarified when Angela looked at her questioningly.

“Oh yes,” Angela answered with a smile. “What can I say, I wasn’t a very bright child,” she laughed.

“You told it to distract me, didn’t you?” Lena asked.

Angela’s smile became a little rueful.

“It’s a technique I used on little kids back when I still worked at Zürich General,” she said. “I thought it might work in your case. I didn’t mean for it to be patronizing or anything—”

“Oh, no, no,” interrupted Lena quickly. “I mean,” she added, “it obviously worked.”

They had made it down the hill and Angela led them to the right. She only let go of Lena’s hand when they reached the door of a tiny building. The sign above it read _Annette’s_.

The crêpes weren’t as good as Angela had promised, they were better. Lena let herself be advised and Angela ordered for the both of them in quick German. As she put the first bite into her mouth, Lena realized that the place was everything Angela had made it out to be and more.

“This is incredible,” she said after swallowing a mouthful.

“I know,” Angela said, smiling. She looked at her crêpe the same way a mother might look at her newborn child.

“Do you come here often?” Lena asked.

“I used to,” said Angela. “Back when I was little I used to come with my parents sometimes. As a treat, you know. But then, when I began working with Overwatch I started to have less and less time and,” she spread her hands, “I stopped coming as much.”

“How long have you been with Overwatch?” Lena asked between mouthfuls.

“Officially, about twelve years or so,” Angela said. “Unofficially, more like sixteen, I’d say.”

“Sixteen?” Lena repeated. She looked at Angela, trying to do a quick mental estimate of her age. She looked to be maybe in her late twenties, early thirties. “How old were you, ten?”

“Fourteen,” Angela answered with a laugh.

“ _Fourteen_?” Lena repeated. She was painfully aware that her mouth was hanging open. “How did you get a position with Overwatch at fourteen?”

Angela spread her hands. “Well, it wasn’t so much a position as an emergency procedure,” she said. “Torbjörn Lindholm was hurt in battle, you see. He lost his arm.”

“And now he as a claw instead,” Lena said with a little grim smile.

For once, Angela didn’t smile back. “Yes. I had just started college at the time—”

Lena almost choked on a bite. “Pardon?”

“I said I had just started—” Angela repeated, frowning slightly.

“No, no, I got that,” Lena said. “But how?”

“Oh, it took some convincing,” Angela smiled. “But I had the grades, so,” she shrugged, “they had to let me in.”

“At fourteen,” Lena said again, trying to process it.

“Yes,” Angela said once more. She smiled ruefully, and Lena had the feeling that she’d had this conversation before. “I was working on the first prototype for the nanites, trying them on muscle tissue regeneration. Overwatch figured they could use some of that, but—” She broke off and her smile became a little more forced. “It didn’t work, as you have already seen for yourself.”

“Yeah,” Lena said, softly. “And then?”

"And then I thought that would be the end of that,” Angela said. “But Dr Goldman—they were the head of the medical department back then—took an interest in my research. They presented it to the board and somehow got me funding and eventually I managed to get the nanites to do what they were supposed to do. And that’s that.”

Lena let out a soft exclamation of admiration. “And how did you become a combat medic?”

“Ah, that. When I built the first version of the suit some years ago, Jack kept pressuring me to release a prototype,” Angela said. “But by that time I knew better than to let anybody else try untested prototypes, so my condition was that I would be the one to take it out into the field and try it out. So I trained with Captain Amari’s division for about a year and eventually met the requirements to become Overwatch military personnel.” Angela smiled. “But enough about me. Tell me about you.”

“Oh, well—” Lena stammered.

She blew her hair out of her face in an attempt to gain time. Not that there was anything she could do to make her own story equal in any way to Angela’s. The woman was a genius, that much was clear. There was no way on earth that Lena could ever compare to that.

“I—umm—joined the RAF about a year and a half almost two—two years ago?—I’m not sure—I—” Trying to focus on any past event was a little harder than she had anticipated. “Well, right after highschool,” she said. She just couldn’t put herself in in another situation where Angela would have to hold her hand. “And then I guess there was nobody mental enough to get into the Slipstream other than me, so Overwatch picked me, and there was the accident and now we’re here.”

Angela nodded and was quiet for a moment.

“Did you always want to be a pilot?” she asked then.

Lena was sure she flushed to the tips of her hair. She could lie, of course, she had before, but somehow this was different. Whatever her relationship to Angela would turn out to be, she didn’t want it to be built on lies.

“No,” she said in a small voice, shaking her head. “I was in a youth centre since I was sixteen. For vandalism and petty theft, nothing, like, major.” She paused and examined her fingers, unable to look at Angela. “Then, when I turned seventeen there was an opportunity to join the army—they were pretty desperate, that was when they lowered the age requirements—so I took it and got assigned to the Kestrel division, and my Lieutenant for once didn’t judge me because of my criminal record and then I turned out to be an okay-ish pilot and yeah, that’s pretty much it.”

She realized how lame it all sounded, but finally gathered up the courage to look up. Angela had raised her eyebrows in surprise but given no sign of disapproval. Lena decided that was as good as she was going to get, in this situation. At least she had been honesty.

“If you were chosen for the Slipstream, you must be more than okay-ish,” Angela said. Lena silently gave thanks that she didn’t comment on her backstory. “Hopefully I’ll be able to clear you in a couple of weeks and you’ll be able to go back to it.”

“Sure,” Lena said, rubbing her neck in a nervous gesture. “Yeah, that’d be great.”

She wasn’t sure if she wanted to go back. Much as she’d like to deny it, the accident and her time in the timestream had shaken her to the core.

“Do you want to start heading back?” Angela asked when they were both finished with their crêpes. “I’ll walk with you to the hill, if you want.”

“You’re not going back to Headquarters?” Lena asked, surprised.

Angela shook her head. “If I sleep one more night in the common room sofa, Ana will drag me home by the ear,” she said.

Lena laughed a little. “I thought most personnel lived on site.”

“They do,” Angela said, holding the door open for her. “But I had been living in the city for a while before joining, so I decided to stay at my own place. Beats Overwatch accommodation any day.”

Slowly, they made their way back to the path that led up the hill. This time, Lena had no trouble walking in an open space, although she noticed Angela watching her carefully from time to time.

“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” Angela said once they reached the base of the hill.

“Yeah,” Lena answered. “Thanks for everything, doc.”

“It was my pleasure,” she said, and she sounded like she meant it.

As Lena walked up the hill, a smile still on her face, her phone pinged. She fished it out of her back pocket, unlocked it, and froze.

 **1 new email**.

 **From:** j.morrison@overwatch.com 

**Subject:** Position offer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, for real now, sorry I took so long, life's been crazy and will continue to be crazy for the next whole-ass year so I can't really promise any sort of regularity, but this fic is still going strong in my head and I'll update when I can!  
> Also, I'm still trying to make sense of characterizations, so I kind of needed this backstory-y chapter. I'd love to hear your thoughts, so comments are more than welcome!


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